The weekly wildlife sightings from the Scottish Seabird Centre.

Wildlife sightings 2 July 2015

Notes from the Discovery Centre team – Alex
The number of chicks on the islands continues to increase with more and more sightings of guillemot and razorbill chicks, as well as more puffins returning to land carrying sandeels in their bills. There has yet to be a sighting of an actual puffling on camera and there is limited activity on our burrow camera. Again we hope that activity picks up and that we soon see adults coming back and forth with sandeels for the chicks.

The first fulmar chick is yet to be recorded and the Dunbar harbour camera continues to be offline. Plenty of activity on the Bass Rock and Fidra cameras however. Gannet chicks are developing well and many nests below the cameras present fluffy white chicks. Many nests still contain very young chicks and there are still some sightings of eggs that have yet to hatch. Lots of great peregrine sightings.

The cormorant and shag chicks are now fully fledged although many continue to remain around their nests. The former have moulted their brown down and now present a white chest. The colony on Craigleith presents this sight well and many guillemots and razorbills remain nestled amongst them.